Worker Rush: Descent to Bronze

It must have been a frustrating day in the platinum league. Perhaps I just didn't want to play another TvT. Or maybe I had to pee. I don't really recall. Whatever the reason, my transformation from casual Starcraft player to worker rusher was abrupt.

That fateful match I was pitted against Boxxybabee on the Shattered Temple. At 22 seconds into the game I got the idea.

That idea was "fuck this game."

I rallied my CC and sent my workers to the nearest enemy spawn location. Fortune must favor the troll, for my opponent happened to be right where I had guessed. I spied her SCV attempting to build a supply depot and quickly put an end to that. He would be the first victim of my mad crusade.

"Join the Army," they said.

Somehow, in the following a-move clusterfuck, my SCVs managed to score a convincing victory. I pressed on toward the enemy Command Center, shocked that my rush had worked. My opponent loaded her survivors into her CC and lifted off. I left one brave SCV to stand guard and watch over the floating behemoth, while the others returned home to begin gathering resources for the eventual Vikings I might need to produce. My APM soared momentarily past its normal level of 30 as I deftly blocked the enemy CC from landing. I was feeling quite good about myself when suddenly, a declaration came from my opponent:

How very un-queenly.

I said nothing, still shocked and focused on the intense micro the situation clearly warranted. After a few moments, she left the game. Victory! Did that really just work? I checked my opponent's league: Platinum. Had I just successfully SCV rushed a platinum leaguer?

I queued for another game, selecting random this time. I found my opponent, Sir Broseph. First a queen, then a knight: Battle.net was too kind with the opponents this evening. The map was Abyssal Caverns. I rolled Zerg against his Terran, but I decided not to rush immediately into the nearest base. Instead, I scouted northward with my overlord and utilized a double extractor trick to achieve the fastest twelve workers possible. My overlord found his base and my workers shifted their course to the north. I managed to make it into the base just before he had erected a full wall. My drones quickly overwhelmed his disorganized SCV retaliation. A marine was trained just in time to be surrounded by the drone horde.

"Hell, it's about ti-oh shit."

Sir Broseph attempted to salvage a victory by franticly sending his buildings in various directions. Having a grand total of one worker rush under my belt, I knew how precisely how to react. I left a few drones to keep tabs on the remnants of his base while the rest returned home to mine. Once again, though, my exasperated opponent conceded defeat before I needed to tech to air.

Are all nobles so bad mannered?

So I had knocked out two members of the platinum league with workers. What was going on? Confused, I queued again. Alas, the Fates can only smile upon one man for so long—I did not scout my opponent first this time and lost.

I left the game and queued again, undeterred. I entered a game with Magnusgo, a Terran. Perhaps not as high born as my previous two opponents, but someone great nonetheless. This was my first game as Protoss. I decided to just rush for the nearest base with my initial 6 probes, queuing another one up as a reinforcement. Luck was with me once again as I spawned next to my opponent on Shattered Temple. After an intense bout of worker micro, my opponent uttered a line which confuses me to this day.

Is he accusing me of taking his cheese?

He then lifted off his CC and I returned to my base as he continued accusing me of petty theft. I sent a probe back to check on things, and discovered that he had landed and was mining again. At first, I attempted to harass his workers to death with a single probe, but then, after realizing I was not Huk, I sent my entire force of 8 probes to aid in the assault.

If at first you don't succeed, pull more workers.

Rather than lose in such a humiliating fashion, Mr. Magnus lifted off his CC and floated to the southeastern island. During the trip he decided to inform me that I "suck nab." He landed, and eventually crawled his way up through the tech tree and produced some marines and bunkers in which to put them. However, at home I had been creating four warp gates and crumbled the rocks protecting his fledgling base. As I marched toward victory my enemy attempted to make clear his feelings toward me.

I didn't take your cheese, I swear.

I lost the next several games, but still I continued queuing and worker rushing. Something about the quick games was addictive. Win or lose it was fun, like pulling a lever on a slot machine. Six losses later my MMR had sunk low enough that Blizzard decided to not only give me a win, but one of the rarer sights on the ladder.

Low class drink, high class manners.

So the games continued, win, lose lose lose, win, lose lose, win. My rank sunk from platinum to gold, from gold to silver. As I dipped further down the ladder I was called "faggot," fucker," and "noob" (as well as various combinations thereof) more times than would be interesting to report. At this stage in my journey, I chose to say nothing during games, fancying myself some sort of silent entropic force that would creep around the ladder and steal ladder points from the unprepared with mediocre worker micro and an underdeveloped sense of shame.

One outburst was noteworthy, however, because not only did he complain about racial imbalance in a game where I only used workers, but because he may very well have predicted the future.

OK, maybe he wasn't right about the Grandmaster part. Or the part about buddies and penises. But he said forum, and I thought it was funny, so hey.

Finally, it happened. After countless games, I was "reclassified."

Call it what you want Blizzard, it still hurts.

It's a strange feeling, being demoted. I mean, I knew it was only because I had worker rushed 100 games in a row, but nobody else would. If they looked my name up they would see that I was just some bronze noob. Fortunately, Battle.net 2.0 feels like an empty void, and nobody is around to actually look at my rank. Still, I added the "Platinum top 50" feat of strength to the achievement gallery of my profile, just to mend my slightly bruised ego.

Ripping on Battle.net 2.0 never goes out of style.

So ends the first part of this journey. How would the bronze league affect me? Would the rampant BM seep into my subconscious and turn me from neutral observer to active antagonist? Would I become so bad at the game that I would never be able to leave the bronze league again, as some sort of poetic justice for my evil ways? And, more importantly, would I get that sick Dark Voice icon?

oh man... I did the same thing. When you rape bronze people... don't do it too hard. I was destroying some bronze people and i was like, "oh man i'm soooo good" then i realized how huge of an asshole i was being... but personally I think this gives you the opportunity to play some REALLY interesting games with bronze people.

so... go do some interesting strategies and don't play to win, just have fun ^__^;;

like do crazy base trades or do crazy mass expand strategies, or just make it a really close game and yeah!!